Atheists Aren’t the Only Problem!

Christians need to rescue children and teens from the destructive teaching of shepherds who compromise God’s Word and lead our children astray.

In recent weeks I’ve been writing blogs and Facebook posts about
a new atheist website that is targeting children. Interestingly, the
launch of a new anti-God website that’s seeking to capture kids
for atheism coincided with the release of AiG’s new ministry theme
for the next two years: “Standing Our Ground, Rescuing Our Kids” (Galatians 1:4).

More than ever in our increasingly secularized culture, Christians
need to be rescuing our children. Galatians 1:4, regarding Christ,
says that He “gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present
evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

Now, when we consider this “rescue,” believers usually think of
rescuing children from non-Christians like the atheists operating the
new website I mentioned above—humanists who are actively trying
to pull children away from the truth of God’s Word.

The Bible warns us about another group of people that our children
need to be rescued from: “‘Woe to the shepherds who destroy and
scatter the sheep of My pasture!’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:1).
I thought of this verse recently when
someone brought a segment of the 700
Club TV program—hosted by Pat
Robertson—to my attention.1 A lady had
written the following to Pat Robertson,
which he read on the air:

On TV’s 700 Club recently, Pat Robertson once again came out against a literal Genesis.

I have three teenage boys and now
two of them are questioning the Bible.
This scares me! They tell me if the
Bible is truth, then I should be able
to reasonably explain the existence of
dinosaurs. This is just one of the many
things they question. Even my husband
is agreeing with them. How do I explain things to them that the Bible doesn’t cover? I
am so afraid that they are walking away from God. My biggest fear is
not to have my children and husband next to me in God’s Kingdom.

Pat Robertson gave an answer
on the air that so burdened me that
I just had to warn you again about
compromising shepherds in the
church and the kids who need to
be rescued from them. His answer:

Look, I know people will probably try to lynch me when I say this,
but Bishop Ussher, God bless him,
wasn’t inspired by the Lord when he
said that it all took 6,000 years. It
just didn’t. And you go back in time,
you’ve got radiocarbon dating. You
got all these things and you’ve got
the carcasses of dinosaurs frozen in
time out in the Dakotas . . .
They’re out there and so, there
was a time when these giant reptiles
were on the Earth and it was before
the time of the Bible. So, don’t try to
cover it up and make like everything
was 6,000 years. That’s not the Bible
. . . If you fight real science, you’re
going to lose your children, and I
believe in telling it the way it was.

Well, I pray this lady does not
accept Pat Robertson’s destructive
advice. This televangelist does not
understand that the Bible includes
references to huge land-dwelling
creatures—what we would call
dinosaurs—that lived at the same time
as man; furthermore, he does not
understand the difference between
historical and observational science.
Plus, he obviously does not
understand carbon dating at all, which has
nothing to do with millions of years.

Notice how he mocked those of
us who take a stand on a young earth
(he has done that before). Robertson
was essentially telling this concerned
woman to make sure her kids believe
what the secularists say about earth
history. Sadly, this kind of approach
is a major reason children are walking
away from Christ and from the
church in unbelief, not because of
the teachings of biblical creationists.

To be frank, and though he
has done much good (especially
in humanitarian relief work), Pat
Robertson is one of those compromising
shepherds we discuss in my
book Already Gone. This co-authored
book with renowned researcher Britt
Beemer summarizes the detailed
research into why two-thirds of young
people walk away from the church.

One of the major reasons for
the exodus we discovered in our
research was that young people
saw such biblical compromise (the
kind seen with Pat Robertson) as
hypocrisy. On the one hand this
shepherd tells people to believe
the Bible, but on the other he tells
them they shouldn’t believe Genesis
as written. Instead, he argues that
our children should believe what
the atheists and other anti-God
secularists say about earth history.

As we embark on a new year of
ministry which reaches around the
world, AiG will be doing
its best to bring groups together to
help rescue kids (and adults) from
this present evil age. But we also need
to rescue children and teens from the
destructive teaching of shepherds
who compromise God’s Word and
lead our children astray.